Kiss The Rain
by dreamkin
Summary: Seventh year. Three friends united no longer. War is upon the Wizarding World once more - and still Harry is stuck at Hogwarts! WIP.
1. one

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Kiss The Rain

…a Harry Potter fanfiction by dreamkin…

…title taken from a song property of Billie Myers…

Kiss The Rain

The thunder crashed in the enchanted ceiling of the Great Hall, sending bright flashes of lightning throughout the room and making several students jump visibly in their seats. Hermione Granger sighed slightly and looked up from her copy of _The Standard Book of Spells, Grade 7_. Small droplets of rain dissipated inches away from hitting the pages. Another fork of ice-white lightning seared across the ceiling. Recently the weather seemed to be reflecting the general mood of the school, as it had been raining constantly for almost three days now. Realising she had read the same page three times but not taken any of it in, Hermione sat back in her seat with a resigned expression on her face. Closing the book abruptly, she stood up and walked out of the Hall, ignoring the stares this garnered her from many of the other students. 

~

In the practically deserted Gryffindor common room, Ronald Weasley was also affected by the weather. Rain hammered on the high glass windows, making so much noise Ron was sure they would soon break from the pressure. The sound pounded in his head, distracting him from his work. He was lying on his stomach in front of the roaring fireplace; Charms notes sprawled around him as he attempted to write an already overdue essay on Invisibility Incantations. There were several different ones available, and he couldn't perform any of them very well. _Never had to, when I could borrow an Invisibility Cloak… _His thoughts stopped abruptly when the portrait hole swung open and someone marched in. Ron turned his head, wondering who it could be when most of the school was at dinner, and stared straight at Hermione Granger. For a minute, she just looked at him in surprise, then paused as if debating with herself whether or not to speak to him. He purposely turned his head back to his essay, and felt the air currents move behind him as she ran up the stairs to the dormitories.

~

At the same time in Hagrid's hut in the grounds of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, Harry Potter was sitting in the large chair staring at nothing. Fang the boarhound's great head was resting on his lap, dribbling heavily onto his robes. Harry's _Firebolt_ broomstick was leaning against the wall beside the door. As the storm raged outside he reached up once or twice to adjust the position of his glasses on the bridge of his nose, as they kept sliding down. The hut seemed large with the conspicuous absence of the half-giant gamekeeper, and very, very quiet without the sounds of the fire crackling or the kettle boiling. In the deadly silence Harry sat, occasionally stroking Fang's head in an absent way, and thought. 

~

Once in her dormitory Hermione threw her book into the open trunk at the foot of her four-poster. Shutting the door calmly behind her, she sank down to the floor and rested against it. Should she have said something to Ron? But what could she say, in any case, which could possibly change anything between them? She massaged her temples with her fingers, feeling a pressure between her eyes that indicated a headache would soon follow. Closing her eyes, she _willed_ it away until she felt the pounding subside and the pressure ease. She carefully avoided looking at the two unmade beds in the dormitory, stripped as they were of hangings and bedclothes. She didn't want to think about that anymore. 

Suddenly she wondered where Harry was. She hadn't seen him in two days; he had obviously been skiving off those lessons that hadn't been temporarily cancelled, and he hadn't been in the Great Hall at meal times either. Ron would presumably have seen him, if only at night, but she couldn't ask him. There was nothing she could say to Harry if he was right here in front of her anyway, but this didn't prevent her missing him._ God, how she missed him. _

When another loud crash startled her out of reverie, she stood up and went to the west window that overlooked the Herbology greenhouses. Looking down she could clearly see several plants cowering through the glass, the Venomous Tentacula just visible from under the cupboard in Greenhouse Three where the trowels and aprons were kept. Hermione pulled the red velvet curtain across the window and continued onto the other three windows. When she reached the south window that looked out over the Forbidden Forest, she was astonished to see a tiny figure walking across the grass in front of it, apparently oblivious to the pouring rain. Squinting hard, Hermione could just about make out that the figure had short dark hair and so was probably male, but it was so wet that further details were impossible to distinguish. Frowning at the incredible stupidity of some students, Hermione pulled the heavy curtain across the final window and began to change into her nightwear.

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~

Ron tried to get back to his essay, but he had lost his concentration after Hermione's interruption. In any case she was soon followed by the rest of what was left of Gryffindor House, most of who sent nervous glances at Ron from across the room and avoided all the comfortable chairs positioned around the fireplace. His sister Ginny gave him a quick smile, which he returned, before sitting in a corner talking to her friends. It didn't take long before Ron had had enough of the tension, and packed his quills and parchment back into his bag. He didn't want to go up the staircase to the boy's dormitory, not yet, and besides, Hermione was up there somewhere. He didn't want to talk to her now. Flinging his bag into a corner of the common room and silently daring anyone to touch it in his absence, he left through the portrait hole with the intention of sneaking down to the kitchens to get something from the house elves. There would not be anything left in the Great Hall at this time of night.

~

Half an hour later, Hermione was disturbed from _The Standard Book of Spells Grade 7 _by the realisation that the thunder had stopped, and went to the nearest window to peek outside. Sure enough, lightning bolts no longer pierced the sky, although the rain did not appear to have lessened. She turned away, then her eyes flew back when she noticed a small figure flying a broomstick across the grounds. It was impossible to make out any details, but she was certain it was the same idiot whom she had seen earlier. She made an impatient noise in the back of her throat, then began pulling her robes back on. As Head Girl, she couldn't allow a student to catch pneumonia, even if it appeared they had a death wish. Shrugging on her heavy winter cloak and pocketing her wand, she hurried down the steps towards the common room.

~

It was in a very bad mood that Ron stomped across the Entrance Hall. The house elves, in an unexpected change of attitude, had refused to give him anything to eat on basis that 'It is not allowed sir, not anymore sir, we is sorry sir'. Ron had not been aware that it had ever been allowed to give students extra food whenever they asked for it, but Dobby had been nowhere in sight so he had had no one to appeal to. Thus it was he was not looking where he was going and collided with someone coming down the staircase as he was walking up it. For the second time that evening he stared into Hermione Granger's eyes. 

'Sorry', she muttered, dropping her gaze, and moved to go past him, but something in him made his hand reach out and grasp her sleeve. She looked up, an apprehensive look on her face, her eyes searching his. Words rose and died in his throat, and for a long moment the two of them stood there, a frozen tableau on the staircase. Then he released his grasp of her cloak and in an almost inaudible voice said 'Never mind.'

As he resumed his walk up the steps he heard her call out his name. Stopping, but not turning to face her, he said 'What?'

'Please, Ron' 

He still would not turn around.

'I'm sorry…Ron…I'm…'

Then he heard her turn and the sound of her shoes slapping on the flagstone floor of the Great Hall and the bang of the huge front door as it slammed closed after her.

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…to be continued…


	2. two

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Kiss The Rain

…a Harry Potter fanfiction by dreamkin…

…song property of Billie Myers, characters property of J.K. Rowling…

Kiss The Rain

The rain lashing on Harry's face felt refreshing rather than harsh, almost purging; certainly a distraction from his thoughts. He flew across the grounds until he reached the Quidditch pitch, where the six golden hoops were little more than tall dark shapes in either direction. Almost without thinking he steered the Firebolt around a couple of laps, then began performing various moves in the downpour, narrowly missing the ground on several occasions. His face was set into an unreadable expression, and he showed no signs of exertion as he dived and swirled around the pitch.

~

Everyone looked up when the portrait slammed back against the outside wall of Griffindor common room. Everyone looked down again hurriedly when Ron stalked through the hole, glaring at anyone too slow to avoid meeting his eyes. He moved to stand behind the largest sofa before the fireplace, then sat down once three fourth year girls had jumped off it and scuttled away to their dormitory. After staring into the dancing flames for ten minutes, Ron was interrupted from his thoughts for what seemed to be the umpteenth time that night when his sister joined him. 

'Ginny, not now okay? I'm not in the mood.' 

'You don't know what I was going to say!'

'Whatever it was, I don't want to know.'

However she was not so easily deflected, to Ron's great annoyance. 

'Tough. I'm going to say it away, and you can bloody well listen to me.'

He raised his eyebrows at her, then leaned back into the cushions and closed his eyes. 

'Fire away then.'

'Right.'

Ginny's mouth formed around what was either a smile or a grimace, and she pulled her legs up and crossed them under herself.

'First off, I want you to know you can talk to me if you want to. I know it's not macho or cool to talk to your sister about your problems, but no-one else needs to know. I'm here if you want me.'

Ron didn't respond. Undeterred, Ginny continued,

'…And I know you _do_ have problems, and I guess you haven't sorted them out or spoke to anyone about them, and I think you should. If not to me, I think you should talk to…to Hermione.'

Ron looked at her, his eyebrows furrowed and his mouth pulled into a hard line. 

'Don't start, Gin. Leave your nose out of that, it's none of your business.'

'Well, what about talking to Har-'

'Neither is that.'

'For crying out loud, Ron! The three of you haven't spoken for - what? A week? More? How can you stand it?'

'It's _none _of your business.'

Ginny slumped back against the arm of the sofa and put her head in her hands. Her long hair fell forward, hiding the angry red burn that marked her far-left cheek close to her ear. Her fingers muffled the words as she spoke them, but Ron could still make them out due to his proximity. 

'It wasn't just you three, you know.'

With a grunt, he stood up and muttered, 'I'm going to bed.' Then, raising his voice, he declared to the rest of the students

'Everyone is to be in their dorms by eleven. I'll check, and if I find anyone, right, _anyone _where they aren't allowed, it will be detention and I'll be speaking to the professors about docking points. Alright?' 

This was met with solemn silence. Ron _accioed_ his bag from the corner of the room and went up the staircase. If he had looked behind him, he would have seen that his sister had not moved.

~

When Hermione arrived she no longer knew what to say. In the back of her mind the thought that the figure could be Harry had been lurking, but she had pushed it aside and convinced herself it was another student. On being proved wrong she was at a loss. She stood in the entrance to the changing rooms, sheltered from the driving rain, and watched the dark haired boy as he raced past her. After five minutes of this she realised she would have to stop him; just because he was Harry didn't mean he was immune to disease. Steeling herself for the unwelcome response she fully expected, she re-cast the water-repellent charm she had used once outside the castle, stepped out onto the pitch and shouted up to him. He ignored her, or else couldn't hear her over the howling wind. Placing her wand to her throat and whispering '_Sonorus'_ she called his name again.

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'HARRY!'

The call reached Harry's numb ears and seemed to break his concentration; he blinked and had to pull his broom sharply to the left to avoid hitting one of the goalposts. Circling in mid-air he squinted downwards, and saw Hermione standing far below on the turf, water bouncing off the air two inches from her skin. For a long moment he considered ignoring her and resuming flying, but something prevented him from taking off again. Guilt, perhaps. He flew down and landed a few feet away, blinking at her from behind rain-splattered glasses and shivering involuntarily from his saturated robes. She didn't appear to have anything else to say, so it was in rather an exasperated voice he asked 'What?'

She looked down and said rather quietly,

'You ought to come inside - if you stay in those wet robes for long you'll get pneumonia.'

Harry looked at her, startled. 

'You came out here just to tell me that?'

She still wouldn't meet his eyes. "I, um…'

Harry suddenly became unpleasantly aware of the rain trickling down his back and wished he had thought to charm himself too. Hermione was now looking at him with wide, frightened eyes; he could only see her huge pupils dilated so that the iris had all but disappeared. The weight of the last week weighed heavily on his mind, and he realised that he didn't hate her anymore. Maybe he never had. 

'We…we need to talk, Herm. About…we need to sort things out.'

Her expression changed rapidly - from surprise, to relief, to apprehension. 'We? Ron too?'

'No. Not Ron - not yet. Just you and me.' This seemed to calm her down, and she chanced a small smile.

'Now?'

'Yeah. Let's go to Hagrid's - bit of privacy.'

He squelched past her and led the way, and they didn't speak until they were both inside the hut twenty minutes later. 

~

Ron flung himself down onto his four-poster and stared at the deep red hangings above him. His anger and frustration with the elves had lessened and now he was filled once more with burning hate, underscored by a deep feeling of hurt and betrayal. His stomach squirmed, and he was not at all sure that it was only his hunger that was causing it to do so.

He had managed to avoid Hermione for almost the entire week, and now he had been forced into contact with her twice in the same night. He couldn't shake the image of her frightened face on the stairs from his mind. What did she expect him to say to her? _It's okay honey, I still love you, don't worry?_ Huh, she wished. And Ginny…Ginny had no right to get herself involved in this. Ron ran a hand through his hair, causing it to stand up in stiff peaks from his skull. His hurt was still strong, still raw, smothered though it was beneath everything else he was feeling. She couldn't ever expect things to be the same, not now, not after…

Ron turned over and buried his head in the pillow. He could hear muted sounds coming from the common room beneath him. _Lucky gits_, he thought, _they have it easy compared to us, if only they knew how easy…_

…to be continued…


End file.
